


A Glimmer of Hope

by Eloarei



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Alternate Universe, Childhood, F/M, Family Drama, Growing Up, Lutecest, POV Child, Science Magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 11:28:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloarei/pseuds/Eloarei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As children, Rosalind and Robert discover the mystical tears, and through them each other. They are each other’s secret, and each other’s anchor through the waves of adolescence and familial turmoil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Glimmer of Hope

**Author's Note:**

> I'd been planning to post this as a one-shot when I was done, but the second half is coming a bit slowly, and I eventually decided it works better in two parts anyway, so here, part one (as previously posted to Tumblr). The second chapter should be about in a week or two, work-schedule willing. (EDIT: It wasn't willing. I still haven't finished the second part, but I swear I haven't forgotten it.) 
> 
> Robert and Rosalind are probably somewhere between the ages of 7 and 10 throughout this first part; the second part will explore them as teens and adults. I classify this as Lutecest, but I'm not sure how "'cest" it will get, so please bear with the mystery. =] 
> 
> Thirdly, I'd like to dedicate this to my dear, late mother, a really beautiful woman whose memory continues to inspire me. <3

A Glimmer of Hope

 

“Rosey, dear, won't you go outside for a while?” 

Mother gently pulled the book down to see her daughter's face. She fixed the little girl with a look that was stern but not without empathy. 

“But I've just gotten to the good part.” It wasn't quite a whine, as Rosalind never really whined, not even when she'd been very small. More she was imploring her mother to understand the irresistible pull of a good book, which Mother certainly did, being a teacher and quite a collector of books. 

“I understand, dear, but one cannot spend her whole summer indoors.” 

The little girl pulled the book to her chest and raised her chin. “Then I shall read outside!” 

“No you shan’t,” Mother said, matching her daughter's expression. “As I recall, that book belongs to Mrs. Mallory, and I won't have it dropped in a puddle.” 

Rosalind's face fell into pout. “I will only read it on the porch; there are no puddles on the porch!” 

Mother's face softened and she reached down to pull the book gently from the girl's little hands. “Dear, don't be hard-headed. Your father wants you to spend some time outside like the other children. Go collect flowers if you don't want to play with anyone.” 

The girl pushed back from the table as slowly as possible, sighing dramatically. “I don't even like flowers very much.” 

“Then collect frogs and bring them to your father, if you like. Perhaps that will make him change his mind about having you go out.” They shared a smile, albeit a hesitant one in Rosalind's case, as she was determined to be at least a little petulant. “And you can continue your book after dinner.” 

Dinner was quite some time away, it being only after breakfast, but Rosalind knew this was the best offer she was going to get, so she gave a bit of an eye-roll for show and let herself be shooed out the kitchen door and into the warm summer sunlight. She looked back over her shoulder, but Mother had already returned to the kitchen, so she hummed and set off down the porch steps and off into the yard. 

Children could be heard yelling a short distance away, playing some silly game or another, the sort of thing that probably required running and getting dirty, which Rosalind wasn't especially fond of. This was the sort of thing most of the children she knew liked to do, so she tended to spend more of her time alone, reading when she could, or observing and imagining when she could not. 

She wandered along the tree line of the back yard, keeping to the side farthest from the noises, lest her schoolmates notice her and try to drag her into their game. Nothing was blooming in their own yard at this time of year, so she decided to take a walk through the forest towards the meadow behind the house, figuring the nearby water would provide more flowers to pick, or frogs to catch, should she take to her mother's second suggestion. 

By the time she reached the meadow, the children's yells had faded and left a silence to be filled by the much nicer noises of birds and crickets, and other sorts of nature-dwelling creatures that were good at minding their own business. It wasn't quite as good as a book, but it was calm here, and pleasant, and solitary. 

She spent some time walking along the creek, poking through rocks and reeds to observe the cray-fish and tadpoles that hid in the shadowy waters. Then she collected a good handful of cat-tails and other tall flowers into a bouquet, dissecting a few for the sake of science. She thought maybe she'd take them back and see if Mother would let her into the house for lunch, but as she was turning to head back through the forest, a glimmer caught her eye. Something was shining up in the large tree in the middle of the meadow. At first she rationalized that it was just a sliver of light shining through the tree's leafy canopy, but even as the branches shifted over-head and a stray wisp of cloud obscured the sun, the glimmer gleamed. 

Tree-climbing wasn't Rosalind's specialty, but investigating curious things _was_ , so she circled the tree's wide base until she found a decent foot-hold, then climbed up as best she could. The glimmer was quite high, perhaps ten or twenty feet, and the tree wasn't made for climbing, like some very branchy sorts seemed to be, but at least the bark was thick and rough, and after a few minutes she made it far enough that she could latch onto the branch and hoist herself up. 

Now that she was close enough to the glimmer to properly observe it, she was still none the wiser as to what it might actually be. True to her speculation, it wasn't just a light cast from above. It wasn't even sunlight-colored, looking more like the reflection of the moon off of water than sun through branches. And it wasn't _on_ anything. It just hung right in mid-air, like a fairy hovering before her, though it didn't have wings. She hesitantly reached out for it, and found that it didn't have much of _anything_ ; not a body, no substance at all. Like any other light, her hand passed right through it. 

“Odd,” she said to herself. 

“Isn't it?” a voice replied from, apparently, around the corner of the tree. 

Rosalind jumped a bit, startled, and gripped tighter to the bark of the tree as she craned her neck around to find the voice. “Who's there?” 

“I'm Robert,” the voice said, as if it wasn't sure anybody had the right to be asking. “Who might you be?” 

“Rosalind,” she told him, a bit distracted from being polite enough to offer her full name, as she otherwise might, by not knowing where this phantom Robert had come from. She was sure she was alone all afternoon, unless this Robert had been watching her from the branches of this tree since morning. The idea annoyed her. “Where are you?” 

“I'm just here,” he said, like it was obvious. “Where are _you_?” 

“ _I'm_ just here,” Rosalind replied with a sigh. “On this branch. By this glimmer. Didn't you see it?” 

“By the glimmer?” He sounded as though he thought she might be an idiot. “I don't see you. I've been watching it for some while now. You're not by the glimmer.” 

Rosalind was becoming frustrated with this boy. “I am too! I am standing right by it! On, on the East side! The creek is to my right, how do you not see me?” She heard a scuffle, as of clothing and shoe-soles on the rough bark, then noticed a movement from within the glimmer. 

“Ah, there you are,” Robert said. “You're _in_ the glimmer. You should have said so.” 

Rosalind gaped, glad her mother wasn't here to warn her of flies getting in her mouth, because she really wasn't in the mood for such nonsense at the moment. This boy and his glimmer were nonsense enough. “I'm not in the glimmer, _you're_ in the glimmer!” she insisted, leaning down as much as she could without sacrificing her balance, to peer at the little slice she could see of the boy. “Are you perhaps a genie, trapped in this magical sliver of light?” Robert didn't sound much like a genie's name, but it was the most logical reason she could come up with off the top of her head as to why a boy would be trapped in such a small space. 

Robert scoffed. “Have you thought perhaps _you're_ the genie?” 

“No, no,” Rosalind said. “I live in quite a large world. It wouldn't fit inside a genie's lamp.” 

“My world is far too large as well. England wouldn't fit inside a lamp, let alone the whole world.” 

“You mean to say you live on Earth?” Rosalind was getting quite fed up with this boy playing tricks on her. She had come to this meadow to be alone, not to be fooled by some strange boy. “Don't be ridiculous; _I_ live on Earth. There's no way Earth could be inside that little glimmer if I'm living on it out here. Look, why don't you just come out?” 

Though she'd made the suggestion, she was a little shocked when he did just that. The glimmer stretched as a boy's pale hand reached through it and flailed about for something to grasp. “Give me a hand then, would you?” So she gripped his hand and leaned back as far as she could without toppling straight out of the tree, and pulled. The boy's arm emerged, then his head, topped in hair of a color quite similar to her own, then his chest, and soon followed by the rest of his body. He shook and stretched his limbs before he took a good look at Rosalind, and then the meadow around them. “For a genie's bottle, this looks quite a lot like where I came from.” He shimmied down to sit on the branch, his head just a few inches below the glimmer. 

Rosalind sat down beside him. “I told you, it's not a genie's bottle. This is my world.” She smiled at him, finding he was less annoying when she could see him properly. He appeared to be the same age as her, and dressed much like any other child in her town, if a little nicer than most of the boys she knew. In fact, he seemed familiar, and comfortable. 

“Our worlds look quite similar then,” he told her, twisting his head to look around the meadow. “Bit of a let-down, to be honest.” 

“I'm sorry,” Rosalind said, though she wasn't actually. “I think it's a bit boring as well. But adventures are what books are for, I suppose.” 

“True,” Robert agreed with a grin, and they proceeded to spend the next few hours discussing their favorite books, which ended up being almost identical. 

The sun was growing cooler and dipping close to the horizon by the time they mutually decided they ought to head home. “Mother will be cross if I miss dinner,” Rosalind said, and Robert nodded in agreement. 

“Mine as well. Father said he wanted me out of the house, but I'm sure he'll want me back in before it's too late.” 

Rosalind stood and pulled Robert to his feet beside her, steadying him when he swayed, slightly further out on the branch than she was. “Then let's meet here again tomorrow. If your parents are anything like mine, they'll be pleased to have you out.” 

“Alright. Perhaps Mother will let me bring a book out this time and we can trade.” 

“Thank you,” Rosalind said, “I would like that.” The idea of borrowing a new book was right up there with the idea of spending another day with her new friend; the thought of reading traded books quietly by each other's side was splendid. So she helped him squeeze back through the glimmer, holding his hand steady all the way until he'd vanished through to the other side, even trailing the tips of her fingers through as he went. 

“Good night, Rosalind,” Robert said. 

“Good night, Robert,” Rosalind responded. “I shall see you tomorrow.” 

She arrived back home a half-hour afterward, a bit later than she'd meant to, due to the difficulty in climbing back _down_ a tree, in low light and in a dress. They were really going to have to do something about that. 

“Welcome home, Miss Adventurer,” Mother said when Rosalind came into the kitchen just as food was being set out. “I didn't expect you to take my suggestion so seriously. Did you have a nice day?” 

_'Yes, quite,'_ was what she wanted to say, but she hadn't forgotten the playful fight she was having with Mother. “It was alright,” she said, smile quirking up into one cheek. 

“Must have been more than alright,” Mother guessed. “Your dress is a mess, dear. Why don't you go change before your father sees what you've done with it, and we can find you something sturdier for the next time you decide to traipse through thorn-bushes.” 

OoOoO 

Luckily, Mother did let her take a book out the next day. It was one of Rosalind's own, so she had no real cause to tell her no, but she still raised an eyebrow as if to say, _'now what did I tell you?'_

“I am lending it to a friend!” Rosalind said in defense before her mother could even open her mouth. 

As a teacher, Mother could not refuse a child who wanted to read, with the exception of her daughter, who she knew was rarely without her head in a book. She 'hmmm'ed, and nodded the girl on her way, yelling after her to remember to get home with enough time to clean up before dinner. 

Rosalind waved over her shoulder as she hurried through the treeline of the woods. She didn't dawdle like she had the previous day. In fact, she was a good hour or two earlier than before. She and Robert had planned to meet at the same time they'd met yesterday, which would be around lunch-time, but she couldn't help hoping he'd be as excited to meet as she was. 

“Robert?” she called when she reached the base of the tree. She was rather hoping she wouldn't _have_ to climb up and help him through the glimmer, but if that was what it came to, then so be it. 

She didn't hear him from the other side, so she began the climb up, glad she'd worn more sensible shoes and a thicker dress today. She was reaching up for the first large branch when she noticed there was no shine gleaming in the branches above. “What...?” she wondered, hoping it was just hidden from view and not disappeared, or worse, that she had only just dreamed meeting the boy. Her heart beating faster, she climbed a bit higher and nearly panicked when she found it was _not_ there. She was so worried that when she heard a voice calling her name from below, she jumped and lost her footing entirely. 

Her fall was cushioned by Robert, who fell into a tangled heap in the grass with his arms around her. “What on Earth were you doing up there?” 

“I was going to help you through,” she said, wincing when the fabric of her dress rubbed along a new bark-scrape on her shin. 

“I'm already here.” 

Rosalind scowled. “I see that now!” She huffed and pushed herself to her feet then held her hand out for the boy. “Thank you for catching me though.” 

“Of course,” Robert replied, brushing dust and grass off his pants and grinning up at her. Then he noticed the book lying on the ground beside them, pages wrinkled where one of their limbs had fallen on it. “It looks like we've ruined your book.” He bent to pick it up and frowned at it when he saw the cover. “Oh, it's _my_ book.” 

“No, it's mine,” Rosalind said, grabbing it from him and opening it to the front page where it was labeled “Rosalind Lutece” in a child's carefully penciled letters. 

Robert stared at it for a moment, then dashed off around the other side of the tree, returning shortly after with an identical book. He opened it to the front page and pointed at the name. “Robert Lutece,” he read, finger trailing under the slightly smeared lead letters. “You're a Lutece as well? Are we related?” 

“Not so far as I know,” Rosalind said, biting softly on her lower lip as she regarded Robert with a new sense of fascination. “My father doesn't have any brothers.” 

“Nor mine.” 

They scrutinized each others' signatures, Rosalind's a little bent from being stepped on, but otherwise intact and quite similar to Robert's. “...A coincidence, then?” 

“I suppose.” Robert frowned and flipped through the book, worn and earmarked just like his, but with a few errant smudges his didn't have. “Unless...?” He caught Rosalind's eye and they shared a look. 

“Secret siblings?” She looked into his eyes, green like her own, and at his pale skin, freckled like her own, and at his hair, orange like her own. “Twins, even?” 

Their confused expressions slowly turned to grins as they became more excited by the idea. To think they could really secretly be twins, after years of being only-children, was like a fantastic fantasy story. “When is your birthday?” Robert asked, reaching for Rosalind's hand and gripping it in his own. 

“May the twenty-second!” 

“Mine as well! What are your parents' names?” 

“George and Mary,” Rosalind responded. “Yours?”

Robert nodded vigorously. “The same. Then it must be true. We must be twins.” 

They basked in the glow of their combined glee at discovering each other for a few moments, before realization dawned. Rosalind's hand grew slack in Robert's. “But you live with your parents, don't you?” 

He nodded, face falling. “And you, yours. Then...” 

“...we can't be siblings...” 

Rosalind's fingers slipped slowly out of Robert's grasp and they backed away from each other with a shared look of utter disappointment. 

“Then, what are we?” Robert asked, clasping his own hands together as if to fool himself that his 'sister's' warmth was still there. 

“We cannot be strangers,” Rosalind asserted, head turned to the side to stare angrily at whatever fell in her line of sight. “We look the same, we have the same birth date, and our parents have the same name; it's sta--”

“tistically improbable,” Robert agreed. They laughed, surprised at first, then simply quite glad. Perhaps they were not siblings after all, but they got along remarkably well, and they knew their mothers would have said that was miracle enough. 

OoOoO 

“I've been thinking-” 

“As have I.” 

“-that perhaps we are actually the same person,” Rosalind said, when they met the next day. 

“I thought the same,” Robert added. 

“I once read a book-” 

“about parallel worlds with copies of the inhabitants?” 

“Yes, and it was fiction, however-” 

“Most fiction is based in fact,” Robert finished, grinning at Rosalind's annoyance. “As mother would say.” 

Rosalind crossed her arms over the thick vest of her dress, even more sturdy than the one she'd worn the previous day. “If you're going to keep doing that, then I shan't talk at all!” 

Robert frowned, a bit mad that she'd ruined his game already, but he relented. Their conversations wouldn't be nearly as fun with only one source of input, even if anything she was likely to say would probably mirror his own thoughts. 

She uncrossed her arms, perfectly forgiving and far too interested in discussing this theory to hold even a tiny grudge against the boy. “So you agree?” 

He nodded. “I don't see what else could be the case. But how do we know for sure?” 

The girl frowned. “I haven't thought of a way.” 

“Neither have I,” the boy added. 

They spent the day discussing their similarities as they wandered the meadow. They were unsurprised to find that both liked science of mostly any sort, and neither was especially good at music, though their parents had certainly tried to keep them involved. Both admitted they thought their piano tutor was vastly disappointed, as Mother had touted their genius in most other subjects. Of course they both liked to read, and promised to lend each other the few books which one had read but the other had not. And by the end of the afternoon, they were not surprised to find that they both had splotchy brown birth-marks near their right hips, though Rosalind refused to show hers, and turned decisively in the opposite direction when Robert tried to show her his. 

It was nothing as definitive as they would have liked, but it was more than enough to convince their lonely little hearts that they were the missing element neither had known they needed until now. 

Rosalind walked Robert back to the glimmer as they said their goodbyes for the night. She thought about the glimmer and what it was, and how it worked, and why. It did seem they had solved the perplexity of each other now, but the shining light that acted as a door between their worlds was still a mystery. The previous day, when she'd fallen out of the tree at her shock in not finding it on the branch, the thing had apparently manifested on the other end of the clearing. Robert had come through on his own, claiming it had been possible only because it was on the ground. When she returned him to it that evening, Rosalind saw that it was even bigger than the day before, and rolled her eyes at Robert for making the passage sound like such a struggle. She held his hand through it anyway. 

This evening, it was situated near the creek, and was easily large enough to crawl through without assistance, like the doorway to a large dog-house. 

“Good night, sister,” Robert said as he got to his knees on the rocky shore. 

“We're not siblings,” Rosalind reminded him. 

“Then what am I to call you?”

 _'Rosalind, obviously,'_ she thought at first, then reconsidered, as it did sound a bit formal for the situation. She considered suggesting 'Rosey', but it felt strange to ask anyone to call her by her mother's personal nickname for her. “Sister will do” she decided, giving Robert a smile he easily returned. 'Sister' would be fine, and it sounded sort of nice, even if it was rather misleading. 

“Then good night, sister,” he repeated. He crawled through the wide grey opening of the glimmer and turned around to see her when he was through. 

“Good night, brother,” she replied, reaching through and linking their fingers for a moment before they nodded and went their separate ways. 

OoOoO 

The summer went by too quickly for either of their tastes, which was surprising, as they were normally the sort who preferred the school year, and the plethora of new books and challenges it brought. They spent the warm days splashing in the creek, tossing frogs at each other. On rainy days, they sat at home and read the books they lent each other, making the best use of any time they had to be apart. They always returned to the meadow the next day to discuss their thoughts, which tended to be either identical or the makings of a fierce argument, both of which were likely to end up in laughter. 

By the end of the season, they'd come to a pretty perfect understanding of each other, and a decent understanding of the glimmers, which they now liked to call 'tears'. 

“It's like a rip, a tear in the fabric of the world,” Robert said as they investigated the mysterious thing one overcast day. So far they'd found that the tears, now far too large to be likened to a mere glimmer of light, seemed to have a mind of their own, and manifested wherever they pleased each new day, but always (so far) within the span of the meadow or surrounding forest. There was only ever one at a time, as far as they noticed, and they never actually witnessed one move, or open, or close, though the fear that they would close and never re-open was ever-present in the back of their young minds. 

“Do you think we could do it on purpose?” 

“Make a tear in the fabric?” Robert asked, sounding at once as if he thought the idea was a bit dubious, and quite exciting. 

“Maybe not _make_ a tear, but tell it where to go.” Rosalind looked hopeful that her 'brother' would approve. She felt sure they could handle nearly anything that they both put their minds to. 

“That would be convenient.” The school year would be starting soon, and most of the time they'd lately been spending together in the meadow would be taken up by schoolwork. Mother was already getting a bit curious as to what could possibly be holding their attention so well in the great outdoors; if they insisted on going out every day after school, they were positive she would become suspicious. 

They spent the last week or so of summer break trying to figure out just what made the tears work, looking at it as scientifically as elementary-schoolers could with their basic knowledge of the scientific method, and then, when science seemed to fail them, comparing what they knew about the tears to classic fantasy novels and fairytales, which was not very satisfying (they'd really been hoping for a scientific conclusion) but at least gave them some ideas. 

“If it _is magic_ ,” Rosalind began, giving a dramatic little sigh over the offensive word, “there must still be some rules to it. An incantation or gesture to summon it. Is there something we say or do every morning before we meet?” 

“'Good morning, Mother. Is Father off to work already?'” Robert cocked his head sarcastically. “If those are the magic words, there must be a million tears. Maybe everyone has met their other self, but always kept it secret.” 

“That's silly,” Rosalind replied, frowning. She didn't _really_ think it was all that silly, but the idea made her angry and she didn't want to think about it. “It's probably not an incantation.” 

“A wish then.” 

They stared into each other's eyes a moment. Rosalind found herself smiling, then smiling harder as Robert's face mimicked hers. A wish. She didn't recall making one, but she certainly felt one had been granted. Robert must have felt the same, if his expression was any indication. His face had become a little red. Rosalind's hands went up to her cheeks to see if she'd been blushing too without realizing. She felt a bit warm, but it was still summer, after all. 

“Yes, that must be it,” she said, turning from Robert and dipping her hand into the cool stream that flowed beside them. She reached to the bottom and sifted her fingers through the soft silt and smooth pebbles, swirling them around a few moments before she looked back and found Robert's face a more normal color again. “Perhaps when two people wish for the same thing at the same time, it comes true?” 

Robert stood up and dusted his hands off on his pants. “Then let's wish for something now,” he suggested. “To test it out.” He offered his hand to Rosalind, grasping her sand-covered fingers with a carelessness toward cleanliness he'd never afforded to other children. 

“Alright, what do we wish for?”

“A unicorn,” Robert answered with a decisive nod. 

“That's absurd.” She crossed her arms against her brother's ridiculousness, though she remained smiling. 

“Yes, but if our theory is true, it will work.” 

A laugh escaped Rosalind's lips, and it was less derisive than she expected. “Fine.” 

Robert stood straighter and put his hands behind his back, clearly deciding to take the lead in this experiment. “On the count of three, wish for a unicorn.” He waited a moment, looking at his sister expectantly. 

“What? Yes, alright.” 

Closing his eyes, Robert counted, “one..., two..., three!” then opened them to find things basically the same as they'd been. “Sister, you didn't wish!” 

“I did so,” Rosalind insisted, putting her hands on her hips. “I thought in my mind “I wish for a unicorn” just after you said three!” 

“Well you must have done it wrong.” The judgmental look he gave her was a perfect cross between his father's disdain and his mother's exasperation, and she knew it well. 

“It didn't work because I don't really want a unicorn,” she explained to him, sure she understood now. He glared at her harder and she added a defensive, “I can't _make_ myself want something I don't want. And the same the other way. The tears know if you're lying, even if you don't.” 

Robert 'hmm'ed and let the glare die down. “Like parents, I suppose.” He looked to Rosalind with a conciliatory smile and they forgave each other, quick as any other time they'd fought thus far. “Then maybe we can't control them.” 

“I still think we can,” Rosalind said. “We just have to want the same thing. We have to _honestly_ want it.” 

“What do you honestly want?”

At that moment, Rosalind found she was keenly aware of the warmth of the sun's rays. “To be able to talk with you after school.” But the statement rang as a half-truth even to her so she admitted (for science had no room for bashful secrets... and magic was likely the same), “to be able to talk with you whenever I want.” 

Nodding in agreement, Robert said, “Me too.” He didn't say, 'I've liked being able to talk with someone who understands me so well.' He didn't mention, 'I appreciate having my mistakes pointed out.' He didn't tell her, 'I've never felt so normal.' But he didn't have to. They understood. 

The next few days were strict practice of opening or moving or in any way manipulating the tears, but they didn't succeed until the night before the first day of school, when they were tucked into their beds and lamenting not being able to see each other until the weekend, wishing desperately that they could at least wish each other luck (as unnecessary as it would be, given their grades). They'd closed their eyes just a moment and opened them again to find the fabric between the worlds had ripped to grant their coinciding wish. Rosalind had squealed quite loudly (or perhaps it was Robert; they never decided), causing their mothers to come investigate, which is how they also found that desperately wishing not to be caught was an efficient way of closing a tear. 

After they'd assured their mothers everything was fine, it was just a dream, they were so excited about school, whatever would make her go away, they opened the tear again and giggled at each other, spending much of the night whispering through the crack. 

When school came very early the next morning, they both wished they'd been a bit more responsible with their new-found power, but refused to call the experience a regret. 

OoOoO

Weeks passed. Months passed. Eventually they regulated their schedules and set up rules about when and where they'd meet, and for how long, and how not to make their parents suspicious. 

The first few nights after school they had to continually remind each other to whisper, so either Mother wouldn't wonder who on earth their child was talking to upstairs, as neither Robert nor Rosalind had ever had a habit of talking to themselves, as far as the mothers knew. (They would notice it more frequently as time went on, their child sometimes asking a question or making a comment before turning to find no one beside them. They denied having an imaginary friend, so Mother optimistically assumed the quirk was a mark of eclectic genius.) 

Most of the time, they sat on opposite sides of the tear, ready to close it at a moment's notice should Mother decide to check on them or, worse, Father start storming around. But on weekends when Mother and Father were out, or late at night when everyone had been asleep for hours, sometimes one would creep over to the other's side, just so they could sit next to each other, huddled under a blanket, reading from a book draped across both their knees. As winter came, and the coldest nights seeped in between the window panes, they pressed close to the other until they'd soaked up enough spare heat to be comfortable and then convinced themselves to go back to their own version of their bed, not daring to fall asleep on the wrong side. On long summer days in the meadow, they'd found they could rest easily, shoulder to shoulder, and not be distracted by the other's heartbeat or breathing, as it was a match for their own. But nobody would come looking for them in the summer, and nobody would be surprised not to find them, so they could let themselves fall into dreams on the other side. 

Occasionally, one or the other considered (sometimes idly, sometimes with a passionate ache) simply leaving their world and joining their twin on the other side permanently. Rosalind had even spoken to her mother about it, although the woman didn't know what was going through her daughter's mind. 

“Would you like a son?” the girl asked as she sat at the dining table, pretending to read but really just counting the minutes until dinner, after which she could go to her room and see Robert. 

Mother had been peeling potatoes, but she put them firmly down in the sink and turned to Rosalind, giving her a curious and serious look. “Are you wanting a brother?” she asked. “Were you hoping your father and I might have another child?” She looked strained, as if just the idea was stressful to her, but she also seemed sorry, assuming Rosalind would be upset when she answered in the negative. 

Even Rosalind, not yet out of elementary school, knew the topic of her parents' relationship was a rocky road. “No, no! I meant, if, say, I had been born a twin! Would you want both a daughter and a son?” 

Clearly relieved, Mother smiled. “Of course, dear. I love you very much, and if there were another of you, I'd love him or her equally.” 

“Even if, magically, I just became a twin right this moment?” Rosalind put on her most innocent expression. Her mother absolutely recognized it as 'mischievous', but chalked it up to the girl being silly. 

“I thought you didn't believe in magic, Miss Scientist.” 

Rosalind turned up her nose and crossed her arms, the very picture of denial. “I don't. It's merely... hypo-thetical.” 

Mother smiled and leaned down to kiss the top of her silly genius daughter's head. “Then yes, if you hypothetically became a twin immediately, I would still love you both. You'd have to share a room though,” she said, holding up her index finger like she was listing off facts in class. “And perhaps even dessert,” she added with a playful smile. 

The girl smiled right back, more than pleased at the thought of sharing her every possession with Robert, if they could live side by side. 

Mother's supposed acceptance of a sudden twin ended up being a moot point, however. It was the next summer, a comfortably warm night, when they decided they would try it out. Mother was away visiting distant relatives, and Father was off about the town somewhere. He was probably drinking, but even if he came home, it wasn't likely that he would bother them. So far, Robert and Rosalind had adhered to their own rules, visiting each other only when it would not be suspicious, and not staying long enough to get either of them in trouble. The longest they'd been on the other's side was the duration of the afternoons when they stayed in the meadow, never more than ten or twelve hours at most. This time, they decided, Robert would stay on Rosalind's side the whole time Mother was gone, four days in total. 

He came through in the early evening after Father had gone out, leaving the tear in Rosalind's closet where nobody was likely to stumble upon it. They spent some time reading, then listening to the radio while they snacked on some of the many fruits and pastries Mother had left for them, apparently not expecting Father to be of much use providing meals. They were already curled around each other in Rosalind's tiny bed by the time they heard the man stumble in, and they tensed in anticipation, Robert ready to roll under the bed if needed, but Father didn't come to their side of the hall at all. They relaxed again when they heard the door to his and Mother's room shut loudly. 

They didn't see Father at all the next day either, though they stayed mostly out of the house, keeping to the meadow until the sun started drooping low in the summer sky, at which point they sneaked back inside. Rosalind said goodnight to her father, so he wouldn't become suspicious at her absence, though she doubted he would care even if she had not. She grabbed a match from the kitchen on her way upstairs, figuring they'd read for a while before bed, but when she found Robert in her room he was already curled up under the covers. 

“Tired already?” she asked, teasing. 

He groaned, sounding more in pain than tired. “I've got a headache,” he said, burrowing down further into the comforter, even though it was quite warm. 

“Should I get you some water, brother?” 

His nod was barely perceivable from beneath the quilt. “Please,” he said in a quiet voice. 

So Rosalind retreated downstairs and returned a few moments later with a glass of water and an apple, but Robert appeared to already be asleep, so she set them on the bedside table and joined him, curling up on top of the blankets to avoid the heat. 

When she woke the next morning, Robert was still curled on his side, facing away from her, still seemingly in pain, even in sleep. “Good morning, brother,” she said, though she was sure he wouldn't call it good, given the wrinkle of his brow. 

He mumbled but didn't rise to greet the day, leaving Rosalind in charge of securing breakfast for the both of them. The glass of water was still on the nightstand, but it had warmed up to room temperature since being poured, so she took it with her downstairs to replace it. She wrapped a few day-old turnovers in a napkin and brought them upstairs with the water. 

“Breakfast is served, milord,” she drawled, dropping the napkin on Robert's lap with a complete lack of ceremony. He groaned and scrunched his face up further when she bounced onto the bed beside him, somehow managing not to spill any water from the glass. “I know you love apple turnovers, but if you don't eat yours by the time I'm done with mine, I cannot guarantee its safety!” She took a sip from the glass then set it down on the table and turned to her brother with gentler movements. “You really aren't feeling well, are you?” 

The napkin of pastries rolled off Robert's lap as he shifted under the quilt. “I just have a headache,” he murmured. 

“Still...?” Rosalind asked, quietly, rhetorically. It was strange for one to be feeling under the weather, but not the other. In the year since they'd met, neither had had so much as a cough while the other was feeling well. It made sense that their health would be nearly identical. After all, they ate the same meals, experienced the same weather, and dealt with the same children at school. If one had a genetic disease, the other would have it too, and it'd likely develop at the same rate. There was really no reason why Robert ought to be feeling unwell while Rosalind was the very picture of health. 

“I'll still get up and go with you,” Robert told her quietly, face just peeking out from beneath the covers. They'd planned on taking a walk into town today and he didn't want to disappoint her with his convalescence. “Just give me a few moments.” 

Rosalind was unsure, not wanting to push him if he truly was unwell, but she nodded. “Alright,” she said, keeping her voice low and sliding off the bed smoothly. She went to the closet and picked out a dress with an opposite color scheme to what Robert would be wearing and carried it out into the hallway to change in the bathroom. “Don't smush those turnovers when you get up,” she reminded him as she closed the door behind her. 

She took her time cleaning up and changing, but she was still almost surprised when she returned and found Robert was actually dressed. They sat for a few minutes and ate breakfast, then headed down the stairs into the foyer. Rosalind plucked one of her father's hats off the rack by the door and sat it on Robert's head, hoping that covering his hair would help keep any people they met in town from noticing how similar they looked. They'd already decided that, if asked, Robert would claim to be visiting his cousins “the Smiths” for the summer. Neither thought it should be an issue because their town wasn't _quite_ small enough for everyone to know each other, but regular people did tend to be gossips, so they were better off safe than sorry. 

They took the path into town and wandered the streets for a bit, stopping by a few stores they liked and generally avoiding conversation by appearing busy. (This was their favorite sort of “socialization”, as it fulfilled the societal requirements of being seen in public, while stopping folks from engaging in the dreaded small-talk people always seemed so fond of.) By lunch time, however, Robert was lagging visibly and passers-by were starting to give him concerned looks, so they took a detour from their intended path and went to the pharmacy instead. 

“Well hello, Miss Lutece,” the thin old man behind the counter said in greeting, nodding his head at her. “How is your mother doing?” 

“She's fine,” Rosalind answered shortly, adding “visiting relatives out of town” when he seemed a bit surprised by her curtness. She took Robert by the hand and led him up to the counter. “Do you have anything to alleviate headaches?” 

The pharmacist squinted in Robert's direction. “And who is this young man?” he asked, avoiding Rosalind's request, as adults often did, and being a busy-body, as people often were. She barely managed not to scowl or sigh in annoyance. 

“Robert, sir,” he said, bowing slightly and not bothering to hide his expression of pain. “I'm visiting for the summer.” 

“The Luteces?” the pharmacist asked, as if not quite believing that such a family would have guests. 

“The Smiths, sir,” he corrected, wincing slightly with each word. 

Rosalind drew herself up taller and fixed the pharmacist with a commanding look she hoped was like the one her mother sometimes used. “He's really in quite a lot of pain, sir. Is there something we could have for it? My mother will pay you back when she returns home.” 

The pharmacist straightened up and left off scrutinizing Robert. “Ah, yes, yes, I'm sure there is something. Just a moment.” He retreated into a back room and returned a minute later with a small bottle. Rosalind took it, thanked the man, and left, quite done socializing for the day. Robert followed her out into the street and back home, where they made themselves sandwiches and listened to the radio for the rest of the afternoon. 

Robert took the pharmacist's mix with lunch, but it didn't help, and by the time the sun was setting that evening, his headache had become unbearable to the point that even Rosalind's whispers were torture. They headed back up to their room and settled into bed, but even the soft darkness did nothing to ease his pain. Rosalind was worried, torn apart by the fact that there was nothing she could do for her dear brother. As he tossed and turned beside her, she began to wonder. Was Robert truly ill? Should she take him to the hospital? Risk having to explain the truth of everything to her father? He would never understand. Maybe this pain was a result of being here. It almost didn't bear to be thought about. But perhaps there was something wrong on the other side, and Robert's remaining connection was causing the terrible ache. She sat up in bed and turned to him, shaking him from his uncomfortable half-sleep. 

“I think we need to close the tear,” she told him in a frantic whisper. 

They'd never closed the door with both on the same side before. It sounded dangerous, and potentially permanent. “You think that's the cause of this?” Robert asked, breathing heavily through the pain. 

Rosalind was unsure, but she _was_ sure she couldn't stand for her dear brother to be in such discomfort. “It might be.” 

Slipping quietly out of bed, they padded over to the closet door and slid it open. The tear was still there inside, glimmering as calmly as ever. The two locked eyes for a moment, faces strained from pain and worry, and nodded. Eyes focused on the tear, they held tight to each other's hand and concentrated. The staticky gray image of the closet on the other side closed off an inch at a time as the two sides of the tear slowly pushed in towards the other, until it was just a sliver. And then it was gone. 

Rosalind turned frantically to Robert and grabbed his shoulders. “Is the ache gone? Are you better?” He was hunched over himself with his hands pressed into his face. 

“I think it's worse,” he said through gritted teeth. When he pulled his hands away from his face, a thick string of blood followed them, dripping onto his shirt and beginning to flow freely from his nose. He sniffed hard and choked on the globs of blood and mucous, trying to catch the flow in his cupped hands. “I don't think it worked,” he gasped, starting to panic. “Sister, I don't think we were supposed to do that.” 

Stinging tears began to well up in Rosalind's eyes and she desperately held back a sob, worried all at once that they'd wake Father, that Mother would notice the bloodstains on the floor when she returned, that Robert would die here in her closet just a glimmer away from home and it was all her fault. What a mess, what a terrible mess she'd made, ruined both their lives in the process and there was no way she could go on after this, after losing her darling brother to the unbearable greed she felt for him and 

Robert's hand came down on top of hers, clutching it clumsily and instilling a calmness in her. “Rosalind,” he said softly through the congestion in his throat. “I think I need to go home.” 

She'd never hated a suggestion of his so badly, but she nodded, pulling his hand into her lap and wrapping it protectively between her own, ignoring the sticky blood as if it were water. She caught his eyes, nearly as wet as her own, but unwavering, and they closed them simultaneously. They concentrated, and when they opened them back up, a little glimmering tear floated between them. 

“Then, good night,” Rosalind whispered coarsely around the lump in her throat. She stroked Robert's hand gently, and did her very best not to hold harder when he pulled away. His look was a mixture of pain and apology, and she imagined hers was much the same. He put his arms into the opening of the tear and pulled, stretching it wider, and Rosalind almost laughed at the fact that he was, in a way, inside her, his hands probably right where her aching heart was. But she wasn't in that world... 

Before he could put his head and torso through, Rosalind was hit with a third bout of panic, and in her delirious desperation she leaned over the tear, brushing through the top of it with her chest and feeling the light crackle of it in her lungs, and set her lips lightly on Robert's. Their eyes met again, and neither set looked surprised, just sad, and then resolved. She pulled away and sat back on her heels, the tear blocking her brother from her view, and closed her eyes to catch her breath. When she opened them a few moments later, there was only darkness, the corners of the closet walls just visible from the diffused moonlight streaming in her bedroom window. 

She cried herself to sleep curled up on the floor there and dreamed a dream of a brother, a fantastic friend she had loved like no other. When she woke in an achy pile of her own lanky adolescent limbs and blood she had not spilled, she cried again, and spent much of the rest of the day performing spontaneous encores. 

Father didn't check on her at all the whole day, and for once she was overwhelmingly glad of his lackluster parenting, for she had no way of explaining why she was still in bed at two in the afternoon which did not include an amount of tears neither she nor Father would be comfortable with. 

By the time Mother came home, she'd mostly dried up. The consuming terror had passed and left in its place a melancholy that was rather dreadful but could at least be shrugged off. Rosalind was still worried. No, not worried; horrified at the many possible outcomes of the terrible mistake they'd made. At best, she'd left Robert to suffer through the remainder of his splitting migraine alone while trying to clean up a veritable explosion of blood and not wake Father. After that, it was entirely possible that he may never want to contact her again, let alone actually visit. It would be well within his rights, of course; the thought was devastating, none the less. The worse possibilities she could hardly stand to consider, so she gave the kitchen a thorough cleaning to keep her mind off of it. 

Mother was suspicious, but too pleased by the spotless state of the house to interrogate the girl properly. Instead she greeted her warmly, having genuinely missed her daughter, and threw out a few questions she figured were less accusatory. 

“What did you do while I was gone, my dear?” she asked, tucking a strand of hair behind Rosalind's ear. 

“I cleaned the house,” she offered. 

Mother raised an eyebrow. “I'd noticed. Did you behave yourself for Father?” 

The girl gave a half-shrug. “Yes. I hardly saw him the whole time.” 

“Out late, was he?” It wasn't a question; it just sounded like Mother was adding yet another item to a long tiring list. “I hear you were out a bit as well. With a boy?” Rosalind paled but Mother gave her an affectionately teasing smile. “Made a friend, did you?” 

Rosalind lowered her head from its usual defiant position, averting her eyes as if she were talking to her father, not her loving, accepting mother. “Robert,” she mumbled. 

Mother laughed, mistaking her daughter's sudden gloominess for some prideful Rosalind-specific shame. “It's nothing to be embarrassed about, dear. I know you've always prided yourself on being above the rest--” 

“I have not!” Rosalind interjected. 

“--but it is important to have friends! I always told you you'd find somebody of your caliber in time.” The girl still seemed to be in denial, so Mother went after her pride in full force. “Unless you became so lonely in my absence that you deigned to step out among mere mortals.” 

“No,” Rosalind denied vehemently, puffing up in an indignant way only her mother or Robert could ever cause her to. But she deflated equally as quickly. “No, Robert is very intelligent.” 

“I'm glad,” Mother said with a nod, as if deciding today's lesson was complete and Rosalind had done sufficiently well. “Then perhaps you can invite him for lunch some time.” 

“Perhaps,” Rosalind replied softly, though she in no way meant it. She considered how only a week ago she was sure she wanted nothing more than for Robert to join their family permanently, and now she doubted whether even she would see him once again. 

The next few days she still could not bring herself to try to contact him, though the separation was painful. Even during the school year, they'd not gone more than three days without at least opening a tear just to say hello, and even then she'd always known it would be just another few days until the next time. Finally, after just less than a week had passed, she let her conscious inhibition slide away and sent out a tentative wish, knowing full well that Robert may not reciprocate, but needing desperately to see the outcome of their experiment. 

There were no words in her vocabulary to explain her relief when the tear split open and Robert was there on the other side, looking whole and healthy and surprisingly pleased to see her. She jumped right through without a second thought and landed heavily on him, causing them to topple off the bed and onto the floor with a thunk. They paused for a minute to make sure nobody was going to come investigate, but when they decided the coast was clear, Rosalind pulled Robert into a fierce hug and refused to let him go for the better part of an hour, even after he explained that he was perfectly fine. The bleeding had stopped within minutes of returning to his side, he said, and the headache soon after. There'd been no crisis over here, nothing unusual or out of place, and nobody had been looking for him. (His father had just assumed he'd been out with friends, demonstrating once again what an attentive parent he was.) No, it just seemed his universe had missed him, or he'd missed his universe, despite how much he'd have rather stayed in the other. 

It didn't seem they would have to stop visiting each other, though the idea of being together permanently was one they understood they might simply have to let go of. But at this point, they didn't mind looking at the bright side, because it was a bright side indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT November 2017: unfortunately it has been a long time since I've had the inspiration to work on this, so while I would still like to finish it at some point, please just consider it complete for the time being. Sorry! If you're dying to know what happens, I can post my Ch.2 notes on Tumblr, but I don't think I'll be actually writing the chapter any time soon. Thanks for understanding!


End file.
